WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.640 You have this big vision for your life that you want and on this side, your family gets 2 00:00:04.640 --> 00:00:07.680 kidnapped and if you don't do something, they will kill them all. 3 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:13.040 Which of those motivates you more right now in this video? When I was 15, 16, 17, I was a pretty 4 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:18.800 angry kid. I thought that I had all these issues. I would tell people I have anger issues. I'm not 5 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:24.240 a nice person. I would tell people those things because I believe those things to be true and I 6 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:30.640 saw them as problems. And then I went to college and in college it's all propaganda of people 7 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:35.760 who are teaching who've never actually done work in a real economy ever. They're all tenured. 8 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:39.920 They don't live in reality. They tell everyone they should pursue their purpose and their passion 9 00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:44.240 and the things that they love and I ate it up. And so I read all these books on positive 10 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:49.120 psychology. I watched all these TED talks and the problem was I didn't make any progress and I 11 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:53.360 felt like there was something even more wrong with me because I didn't feel any of that stuff. 12 00:00:53.360 --> 00:01:00.240 I wish I could go back and tell myself, dude, all the stuff they're saying is just not true. 13 00:01:01.120 --> 00:01:06.160 Like you don't need any of that. You can embrace the fact that you are angry. You can embrace the 14 00:01:06.160 --> 00:01:11.840 fact that you feel like you are in pain. And you can use that to make the life that you want. 15 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:16.560 You don't have to use the lovey-dovey purpose passion to build the life that you want to build. 16 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:21.200 What it does is it tells people that having a negative emotional experience is a bad thing. 17 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:25.760 But half of your life is below average by definition. And so if you are not using the half 18 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:31.120 of your life as energy or motivation to create the life you want, then you're at a huge disadvantage. 19 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:36.240 They interviewed the top Olympic medalists and they found that they don't actually love winning. 20 00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:42.160 They hate losing. When they win, they experience relief, not euphoria. If you look at Steve Jobs, 21 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:47.840 he wasn't some happy, go-lucky dude who was like, man, I just want to make the world a better place. 22 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:52.880 He was a tough dude to work for, but he created something beautiful from that pain. MJ, 23 00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:58.480 you look at Kobe. They had imaginary situations that they created in their mind to create more 24 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:03.760 suffering in their own life, to motivate them and use this fuel. Imagine you have this big 25 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:08.640 vision for your life that you want. And on this side, your family gets kidnapped. And if you don't 26 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:12.640 do something, they will kill them all. Which of those motivates you more right now in this video? 27 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:19.440 Probably the one with your family getting kidnapped. It's not trying to harness a lovey-dovey feeling. 28 00:02:19.440 --> 00:02:24.880 It's harnessing pain. It felt like I had experienced more pain than I had good. 29 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:30.720 I saw it as a disadvantage. I saw it as something that I had to overcome. I didn't have this big 30 00:02:30.720 --> 00:02:34.160 purpose. I didn't have this thing that I loved. I didn't have this thing I was passionate about. 31 00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:40.560 And if I could have just skipped all of that and started the moment I accepted that it was okay 32 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:47.120 to be angry, what wasn't okay was not doing anything about it. While I procrastinated by trying 33 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:51.680 to find purpose, jumping from thing to thing to thing, trying to find the thing that really 34 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:57.600 lit my fire. And just accepted that it was totally okay to work my face off and discussed 35 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:03.120 from my current circumstance and who I was, then I would have gotten to where I wanted to go 36 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:08.800 much faster. So many people are believing a lie. They have to be happy. They have to have purpose, 37 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:12.720 passion for what they're doing in order to get out of their situation. They think that they are 38 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:18.560 poor because they don't have passion. That is false. You were poor because you're not doing the 39 00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:24.960 activities that make you rich. And you can fuel those activities whatever way you damn well please. 40 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:29.920 And so if you are somebody who is more motivated by the dark side, then lean into the dark side. 41 00:03:29.920 --> 00:03:33.920 Unlike the saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The equal opposite of that is 42 00:03:33.920 --> 00:03:39.440 the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions. You can do good shit with bad motivation. And when I 43 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:44.400 say bad, I mean negative experiences, pain, anger, etc. I still have tons of motivation from that 44 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:49.280 side. You can use that negative fuel, pit it on speed dial every time you're confronted with that 45 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.960 thing that you don't want to do. You push through it and what happens, you do that enough times, 46 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:57.920 you start to get good at the thing. You start seeing the result of work that has compounded and 47 00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:02.720 start to see a purpose or start to see a bigger vision. The big vision for Alex's life until 48 00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:07.520 maybe four years ago was don't be broke. What was your mission with Jim? My mission was to stop 49 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:11.440 being poor. There are elements of shit that I do that I absolutely love. But there are tons of 50 00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:16.640 shit that I do every day that I fucking hate. I just don't hate it more than I hate the alternative. 51 00:04:16.640 --> 00:04:20.880 And the richest people in the world, they all say it's not about the money. Because if it's about 52 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:25.440 the money, you stop the money, you have enough. The people with a wealthiest in the world have the 53 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:31.200 three things in common. They have the big goal. They have massive fears about never being enough. 54 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:35.120 And then they have impulse control to stay on goal. And oftentimes that impulse control comes 55 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:39.360 from right as you approach the guardrail looking over the edge. And imagining what it would be like 56 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:42.560 to have your friends tell you that you were a failure or have them laugh behind your back or talk 57 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:48.080 down about you or have your parents when they're introducing you as their fun loving kid. You know, 58 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:54.240 he's still figuring himself out. That is what would crush me. The boring shit that you have to do is 59 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:58.320 not fun. Jeff Bezos talks about overhead and business. There's tons of things that you have to 60 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:02.720 do and be willing to do that you do not enjoy. The question is whether you do not enjoy them more 61 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:08.000 than you do not enjoy the pain that you were going away from. As long as the pain of moving forward 62 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:12.720 is less than the pain of going back and the pain that you imagine from not taking the action that 63 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:17.280 you know should be taking, then you can use that energy as the single fuel that you can stay on 64 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:23.280 path for an extended period of time. I'm writing my book right now. I'm on the 11th fucking draft. 65 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:28.320 Like there is no feeling that makes me more sick than the idea that I could have done more. 66 00:05:28.320 --> 00:05:33.920 The pain of the idea of that book not doing well or that book leading to people being like, 67 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:39.520 I don't think he tried his heart. That is the thing that hurts so much more than going from the top 68 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:44.240 yet again to make another video to make another article to make another short to make another 69 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:49.200 fucking chapter revision yet again so that when I do launch it, I think to myself I literally 70 00:05:49.200 --> 00:05:54.560 exhausted every option on this. One of the sayings that I live by is that I will not do my best. 71 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:58.720 I will do what is required and the difference between what your best is and what is required is 72 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:03.360 the difference between what you think your real best is and what your actual best is and what your 73 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:07.440 actual best is is the thing that you would do to prevent everyone that you know from dying. 74 00:06:07.440 --> 00:06:12.560 What people care about is the outcome. What you put out in the world.